Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast - Remembering Abbott & Costello Encore

Episode Date: October 7, 2024

GGACP celebrates the birthday of legendary straight man Bud Abbott (b. October, 1895) by revisiting this informative panel discussion as archivist Bob Furmanek, film critic Leonard Maltin and author-historian Ron Palumbo join Gil and Frank for a look at the lives and careers of one of the most popular comedy teams of all time. Also in this episode: Groucho Marx gushes, Dean Martin gets a nose job, Boris Karloff turns down “Abbott and Costello Meet Frankenstein” and Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi consider a Bud and Lou biopic. PLUS: Bingo the Chimp! Saluting Sidney Fields! Shemp joins the army! Joe Besser frightens Gilbert! And the experts pick their favorite A&C movies! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hi, this is Gilbert Gottfried and this is Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast with my co-host Frank Santo Padre. Eighty years ago this week, movie audience who were first introduced to a comedy team that had already made their mark on the Burles sage and on radio. The movie was One Night in the Tropics and the comedy team was Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. To celebrate that silver screen anniversary, Frank and I have assembled a panel of experts to pay tribute to two of the greatest and most beloved comedians of all times. Bob Furmanek is an award winning producer, author, historian, archivist and president and founder of the 3D Film Archive,

the first organization dedicated to saving and preserving our stereoscopic film heritage. Bob has restored original 3D elements of more than 30 features and two dozen shorts from 1922 to 1955, known as the Golden Age of 3D cinema. And he recently launched a Kickstarter campaign known as the Golden Age of 3D cinema. And he recently launched a Kickstarter campaign to restore and preserve two Abbot and Costello films,

Africa Screams and Jack and the Beanstalk. Bob also enjoyed a long professional associations with both Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis and served as an archivist to the personal estates of Bud Abbott and Lou Costello. Ron Palumbo is an advertising creative director who's worked on dozens of famous campaigns and won every Industry award he's also the world's leading authority on Mr.. Abbott and Mr.. Castello and the founder of the official Abbott and Castello fan club along with Bob he co-authored the essential book, Abbot and Costello in Hollywood

and the author of two must-have books in the Universal Film Script series, Buck Privates, the screenplay and Holat Ghost, the screenplay. addition to providing a liner notes and audio commentaries for many Abed and Costello releases. Ron has written essays for the Library of Congress on who's on first and Abed and Costello meet Frankenstein. And our returning champion, Leonard Moll, is a historian, TV personality, and internationally recognized film scholar and critic, as well as the author of some of the most influential books on cinema and entertainment,

including of Mice and Magic, the great movie comedians, Our Gang, The Life and Times of the Little Rascals, Leonard Moulton's movie Crazy, and Hooked on Hollywood. He edited and created the indispensable Leonard Maltin's movie guide and is currently the editor of Leonard Maltin's classic movie guide, along with his daughter, Jessie.

He also hope he also hosts the terrific podcast M Malten on Movies and his new board game, King of Movies, the Leonard Malten game is available everywhere. Now, beat me. Welcome boys. Ah, welcome.

Is there any time left for the show? There's no time left. Any one of you wants to jump in on this? I hope it's true that that board game is available everywhere. I just went into a liquor store to pick up a bottle of ginger ale. They didn't have it. I guess we should say everywhere board games are available. Okay, that's good.

So, which comedy team hated each other more? Evan and Costello or Martin and Lewis? Oh boy, what about Noonan and Marshall? Did Noonan and Marshall dislike each other? No, I think they got along fine. I should stay out of this part of the conversation. Too dangerous. What do you think, Ron?

I think one of the things when we did the book, the director Charles Lamont, who worked with Abbott and Costello at the end of their careers, he said that, have you ever heard of a famous comedy team that hasn't been accused of fighting and hating each other? And he said that he thought that the Abbott and Costello fights and all of that was a publicity thing because he was with them all the time. He just said that the only time I saw them fighting was when they were playing cards. So I don't doubt that they did have strains in their relationship, because they were with each other hours on end. They were with each other more than they were

with their wives. So naturally, personalities are going to clash. But generally, if you hear the stories of people who were around them, they got along like brothers and they fought like brothers. Gilbert, do you and I- So you're saying Martin and Lewis. Gilbert, do you and I yet qualify as a comedy duo who have an intense dislike for each other? Yes. Okay, good.

I don't know if it's comedy, but I never liked you. Well, you know, I could address the Martin Lewis thing a little bit. You knew them both. I knew them both. I knew Jerry much better than for many, many years from the last 40 years or so when he was here. But, you know, they were together as a team for 10 years. And for the first seven or so of those years, they were as close as anybody could be. I mean, they were really, really tight.

They had a great time. It really comes across in their live work. If you see their Colgate Comedy Hour appearances and you see how much fun they're having. But, you know, that changed around 1954 and the last couple of years were really rocky. But one of the myths about Dean and Jerry is that, you know, once they split, they did nothing but fight for the next two decades. And that's not true. They had a few rough years at first.

Both of them said things in the press that they probably shouldn't have. And I believe both regretted. But they did, you know, reestablish a relationship. They were not as close as they were. But, you know, they had a lot of reunions that people don't know about, including one in 1960 at the Sands when they both worked on stage together. Yeah, Bob, I'm glad you brought that up because everybody thinks they hadn't seen each other or been on a stage together until Frank Sinatra set that up on Jerry's telethon. Right, right. But they had. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they had a lot of... I did a 90th birthday event for Jerry at Museum of Modern Art in New York. And one of the programs I presented was about the Martin and Lewis reunions.

And there were several dozen of them over the years between 1956 and 76. And some private things, things that happened at Paramount and at Columbia on the lots when they were both working there on different projects. Jerry even did a cameo on one of Dean Martin's TV shows because they were both working at NBC. Unfortunately, Greg Garrison, Dean's producer, decided, we don't really need that. He cut it out and that footage does not survive. But yeah, I mean, I've gone a long way to basically say what Ron said about Bud and Lou.

They were together a great deal of time. They had their squabbles, but what team doesn't? What marriage doesn't? And that's what it was. Ron, what was the nature of their relationship at the end when Lou passed in 59? What was the status? Yeah, they had broken up early in 57.

They were actually going to go perform at Eisenhower's inauguration. And then a lot of celebrities canceled out at the last minute on that. But after that, they weren't getting books, bookings. They were not with the studio. Universal had dropped their contract because they'd asked for too much money, in Universal's opinion, and they weren't getting any gigs. They weren't getting any television work. The TV series had been in reruns by that point. They also got hit, most importantly, by this gigantic tax bill. They both were really socked by the IRS. So they had no money coming in at

the ends of their careers. And Lou broke up the team. And there's several reasons for that. They maybe had gotten to a point where they recognized that their type of comedy was not working anymore. Also, maybe Lou wanted to try something else. But I also think a very big factor was the fact that nobody was buying the act as Abbott and Costello. So, Lew wanted to try it out on his own. He also had said that if somebody comes to us with the right material, the right piece, the right thing, we'll do it.

We'll get back together. I don't know how that would have shaken out if Lew had lived longer. They probably would have gotten back together, I think. But he died. Unfortunately, he died in 59. Dr. Ben Yeah, he had several bouts of rheumatic fever. The first one was in 1943. He was bedridden for seven months. Right at the peak, they had just been the number one box office at the end of 1942.

At the beginning of 1943, he's suddenly thrown into bedridden for seven months. Then, of course, at the end of that recovery period, his infant son drowned in the pool and he was again not able to work for a little bit. He was so distraught. And then he had several recurring bouts of it, I think in the late 40s and again in the early 50s, where he was again bedridden for several months at a time. Right, Bob? Anything? Well, yeah. I mean, in fact, you know, talking about this Abbott and Costello thing and the connection with some of the other work I've done with 3D restoration, they were going to do a 3D movie in 1953 called Fireman Saved My Child. And a second unit went up to San Francisco and shot stuff with their stunt doubles.

And then I believe it was like the day they were going to leave, Luke collapsed and had to be hospitalized. And the Universal had already shot enough footage of the film that they didn't want to completely scrap it. So they brought in Buddy Hackett and Hugh O'Brien to play because they had the similar builds as Buttonaloo. So his illness really affected several key points throughout their career.

I remember seeing Buddy Hackett on The Tonight Show many years ago talking about his very brief movie career in the 50s and he said he had a contract with Universal International that said he couldn't make movies for anybody else. And after a couple of films, they typed in, or us either. I've never seen fireman save my child. Is it, is it any good? I haven't seen it.

John is shaking his head no. I saw it once, I saw it once a very long time. I didn't learn about it until I read Leonard's movie comedy team's book. And I was like, oh my God, this is mind blowing that they weren't in that movie. And then I saw the movie was on like some UHF channel and I was like, oh my God, thank God

they didn't do this movie. But also the director was Charles Lamont, originally was Charles Lamont, and then he did the screen test for Hackett and you O'Brien and he said, I'm not gonna do the movie. So he asked off the movie when Abed and Costello were off the movie and so,

Leslie Godwin's I think, wound up doing it. And of course, go ahead Gil. I was gonna say in a cruel twist of fate, Hackett winds up playing Lou all these years later. Well, you know, he wasn't the first choice, actually. The first choice in the Bud and Lou movie were Dan Aykroyd and John Belushi, who wanted to do it, who wanted to play Abba and Costello. Did you know that, Gil? And Bernie, their agent, Bernie Brillstein, said, uh-uh, because they were just really,

the Blues Brothers was just starting to really connect. And they said, no, you're not gonna do it. And of course, thank God they didn't, because the movie turned out to be terrible. And then the other piece of news is that Buddy Hackett went to Frank Sinatra and said, you want to play Butt Abbott? And Frank said, yeah, I'll play Butt Abbott.

And then NBC said, we don't want Frank Sinatra. Because I guess he'd done a TV movie or two and he was really hard to work with. I'm not sure what the rationale was, but NBC said we don't want Frank. And then Buddy got Newhart, Bob Newhart, which were actually an interesting kind of choice. And Newhart eventually hemmed in hard

and took too long to say he wanted to do it or not. Then he backed off and then Buddy Hackett was gonna quit. And then they got Harvey Corman, who's great. I love Harvey Corman. I love Buddy Hackett. Buddy Hackett's hilarious, but not in these movies. No, no sir. Most importantly, in the movie, Artie Johnson comes in as I think Eddie Sherman. Eddie Sherman, yeah. And he sneaks him a takeout take out strawberry malted to which Buddy Hackett says, I had a strawberry malted in my day, you know that?

But this one's the best. And then he dies. And in a conversation. And now I'll never forget your rendering of that scene, Gilbert. Gilbert was forced to sign the same contract, Leonard. I didn't know Lou Costello was allergic to strawberry. That's news to me.

In discussing this with Bob and Ron the other day in a pre-call that we had, that's not quite what happened with Lou. No, I mean, it was pretty widely reported in all the papers that his last words maybe not as dramatic as the strawberry molded, but he asked the nurse if she could help him roll on his side to be more comfortable.

And that was it, and that's when he went. I don't know where that strawberry milkshake came from. I tell you, I saw that TV movie when that first aired. So I was, I was guess around 16 or so. I still haven't gotten over it. That was unbelievably bad. One of the worst. It's traumatizing.

And the funny thing about it is it's like- It's something funny. When they do their routines, you'd think that the two of them never saw. I've been on Costello. There was no timing at all in it. Yeah, no, no, not at all. You can see that they're reading on cue cards. It's really, it's very sad, you know, especially.

Go ahead, Ron. No, especially when you see like the Laurel and Hardy movies, Stan and Ollie, which has just done so well, so affectionate. And again, the problem, the thing is that that movie was written by somebody who was a fan and really sent them a love letter. And the Avon Costello movie was kind of the opposite. It was, you know, this Bob Thomas did the book with Eddie Sherman, who had an, apparently had an ax to

grind. And a lot of the people that Bob Thomas talked to, I mean, Bob and I talked to these people, the same people, and even Jim Mulholland, who did the first Abbot and Costello book, which is a beautiful book that Leonard published back in the day. But Jim Mulholland and we, and Chris Costello, all interviewed the same people that Bob Thomas did, and we didn't get any of those horror stories that wound up in his book and then wound up in the movie portraying Lou as such a, you know, an SLB. Leonard, remember that period of Hollywood where they were churning out all those

really offensively bad Hollywood biopics like Gable and Lombard and W.C. Fields and me? Unfortunately, I remember them very well. As Valentino, I think, was another one. It's a spate of them. When will they quit? What can we do? What kind of a GoFundMe can we start

to deny them the ability to make biopics? There was a Fatty Arbuckle thing with James Coco you called The Wild Party. Do you remember these pictures? Oh, it's from a cow watch. Yeah, there was just a run on these awful bad Hollywood biopics. And all of them had that wonderful dialogue

that would say, you know, well Clark, you just did. Gone with the wind with Vivian Lee. And look at it. It's 1939. And you're the top star at MGM. Bad exposition. Yes. And then there's always a... In the Benny Goodman story, nobody's idea of a good movie.

Yeah. Ailey McMahon plays Benny's mother. And throughout the film, she keeps saying, Benny, don't be that way. Don't be that way. Of course, that's the name of one of his first hit records. Subsequently. But if you want to have a real treat sometime,

this is off topic, but if you really want to give yourself a hearty evening of laughter, watch a movie directed by Alfred Hitchcock in England in the 30s called Waltz's from Vienna. It's a Strauss biography. Wow. And how he comes up with the idea for the the Blue Danube Waltz and stuff like that. It's kind of a catalog of bad biopic tropes. There was a TV movie, I think, called Bogie and Bacall about Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall. I forget the actor who played him, but I guess he wanted to avoid, you know, a rich little impersonation. So he didn't play it like Bogard at all. And he was going like he was be talking to Lauren Bacall and say, okay, I just finished Casablanca and

we did some, we finished up the Maltese Falcon. And it was, that's the one you gotta see. Don't forget the man with Bogart's face. Oh, Robin Saki, I think. Yep, yep, yep. Speaking of Bud and Lou, I found out doing research that Eddie Sherman worked with Bela Lugosi, which is kind of cool. Early on or later?

After Meet Frankenstein, he represented him for the spook shows, the live spook shows. Oh, he toured doing that for a while. Yeah. Yeah. Eddie Sherman represented a lot of the people in Bud and Lou's orbit, like the director Charles Lamont, Hillary Brooke, a few other people as well. So ultimately, Irene Ryan of Beverly Hillbillies and Jean Barry. Now, a connection with Dean Martin and Lou Costello is I think Dean Martin at one point,

he was a bit of a conniver and he would like have people, he would agree and say, you'll be my manager. And they'd give him money, they'd take care of him. And he'd have like, you know, 10 people at once who thought they were Dean Martin's man. And one of those was Luke Costello who paid for Dean Snow's job. Bob, do you have a comment on that?

Yeah, I think at one point, Dean had something like 120% of his income paid to management. So he was definitely a little overextended in that area. And what was odd when I first got involved with working for the Abbe-Castello families, the first person I met with was Carol Castello. And she was living with the Dean Martin son Craig so I think you know over the years some peace came and brought that that group together but but yeah Dean you know anybody that said hey you're

great I want to sign you he'd signed the contract. I heard one time Costello went to a club that Martin and Lewis were playing at. And after the show, Dean Martin wouldn't come out and talk to Lou Costello. So Jerry Lewis did. He probably felt he owed Lou too much money or something. And of course my most thing I'm most curious about Abbott and Kastel was I heard Bud Abbott had the largest porn collection of any kind. Of course that's Gilbert's area.

I think they both did if you look at the FBI reports. So I think that was, don't forget these guys came out of burlesque. So I don't know, maybe there's a, they like to be in style. I can tell you by time I got into their libraries and in the mid eighties, the stuff was scattered everywhere. Carol Costello was storing her dad's films in a pantry closet off the kitchen. The Bud Abbott stuff was, some of it was in Vicki's garage,

some of it was at Beacon Storage, and I pulled all that stuff in to go through it and catalog it and see what was there. I didn't find anything like those FBI reports, so whatever they had was long gone by the 80s. The only thing Bud had was a single reel, 16 millimeter, and it was maybe like an eight minute film. And it was called A Night at the Zamba Club.

And I said, wow, that's kind of an interesting, it's not, I know it's not a castle film, so what is this? And I put this thing on and it was, yeah, it was strippers and, you know, like 1940s and that kind of thing. So I said, wow, the Zamba Club, I'd like to know more about it. It turned out it was in Studio City on Ventura Boulevard and the building was still there in the 80s except it had become Oil Can Harry's. And that was a very popular gay hangout at that time.

So these things all run in circles. And whatever Bud or Lou may have had, the films were long gone. The Zamba Club, by the way, was run by a guy named Murray Teff at one point, who was Bud's stunt double and Man Friday for a very long time until he punched Bud's chauffeur in the jaw and dislocated it because the chauffeur was saying, Murray's stealing from you. And of course Murray was not stealing from him. So he got angry and that's how he lost his job as Bud's stunt double. We will return to top it all off, quick and secure withdrawals.

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and associations, or visit securiancanada.ca. Securian Canada, insurance designed for life. I'm gonna ask you guys to go way back and remember, if you can, your first impression or your first A and C experience. Can you remember? I'd love to hear Leonard's first. Yeah, Leonard, let's start with you.

Well, I grew up in Teaneck, New Jersey, you know, just a spitting distance of New York. So I had New York television. That meant I was watching them on WPIX, Channel 11. And I don't remember a time when they weren't in my life through television. Interesting. I remember seeing Jack and the Beanstalk at a Saturday Kitty matinee, because I found out later on when I got wise to all of this,

I'm the last generation that went to Saturday matinees. Sounds like the pro-Magnon era. It's so long ago. But what happened was the theater managers would call the exchanges. Universal had a local print exchange and all the majors did. They did in every major American city. And they would have the current films to service the theaters.

But they would keep prints around for second run theaters and for kitty matinees. And that's how I saw every Francis the Talking Mule movie, every Mom, Pa Kettle movie. Wow. And occasionally in Abed and Costello. Wow. Bob, do you remember? Or the Bowery Boys. Abed and the Bowery Boys. Bob, do you remember yours?

Oh yeah. Well, I was born in 1961, and by the time I became aware of things in the mid-60s, those kiddie matinees had stopped. Right now, doing research for the Jack and the Beanstalk restoration. And that film was still getting bookings in kiddie matinees and even drive-ins into the early 60s.

By the mid-60s, the kiddie matinees were over. But my exposure was television. Also grew up in New Jersey. So I go back a little bit. I can remember Channel 9 ran them constantly. We had the million dollar movie where, if you missed it Monday night, there was Tuesday night. If you missed it Tuesday and Wednesday,

and they ran the same film for 10 times a week. You could memorize it, but that was better than having a VCR. Oh yeah, yeah. But that was it. We all, I think all of us in our generation grew up with that kind of exposure to not just Abed and Costello, but to Laurel and Hardy, the three students and all the classic films that we know and love so much.

So yeah, it was not hard to become an Abed and Costello fan growing up at that time. And I remember they used to show the Ballerai Boys too. Mm-hmm. Well, we all grew up on the same coast, so I think maybe that gave us an advantage because we were all watching Channel 9 and Channel 11. You too, Ron? Yeah, absolutely. Abba and Costello, again, meet Frankenstein and hold that ghost for a million dollar movie,

and I just became entranced with that. The idea of it being scary at one moment and funny at another captured my attention. Also then the TV series, when you came home after school you'd watch the Abba and Costello TV series. The lineup was like the Three Stooges, Abba and Costello, Adventures of Superman, Little Rascals, Officer Joe would show those things. I think I discovered the series before any of the films. Yeah, I think I did too. And then when I started to see the films,

and again, Leonard's first book, the movie comedy team's book, I had no idea there were that many films that Abba and Costello would make, because I'd only seen the few that were, the handful that were shown on, you know, Channel Nine, and then eventually Channel Eleven got the whole package in the early that were, the handful that were shown on, you know, Channel Nine and then eventually Channel Eleven got the whole package in the early 70s

and that became a Sunday morning staple, you know. Yes, which they refused to call the Abba Costello Show or the Abba Costello Movie of the Week. They had this generic title like Sunday matinee or Sunday movie. That's right. And like seven years, eight years, nine years of every weekend in a row, they refused to acknowledge that it was always going to be an Abba and Costello movie.

I never figured that out. Somebody was sitting at home waiting for Ben Hur to come on and it's got to be Abba and Costello again. I'm surprised it's another Abba and Costello again. I'm surprised it's another Avid and Costello movie. Yeah. Oh, and on that TV show, if you could film me in more, and I always thought Sid Fields was really funny. Brilliant. He was. He was.

You're not the only one. I mean, he was a great straight man back in the day. In fact, he worked with Lou Costello before Costello worked with Avid in Jersey, and Patterson, as a matter of fact, at the Orpheum when that was a burlesque house in the early 30s. So Lou knew him from way back. And Sid Fields was also a great sketchwriter. He wrote a version of Slowly I Turned, step by step, pinch by inch. And he also wrote the Susquehanna Hat bit with Joey Fay. He was part of that group, mostly Joey Fay, but Sid contributed to that as well.

So he was a great writer and he wound up writing, I wanna say like 20 episodes of the TV series, Bob. At least, yeah. At least 20 episodes of the TV series. And he came up with bits. I mean, he knew all these old burlesque bits and he would put them in there and then everybody had different versions of it. It's kind of like, I wanted to mention the aristocrats joke, Gilbert, it's like burlesque

bits had this, you had the premise and then you had to get to the punch line and everything in between was whatever you came up with. And that's the way all these burlesque sketches were. There were certain notes you had to hit, but everything in the middle was how good you were at coming up with bits to fill the moments inside and making it your own, really showing your creativity as a comic. People weren't concerned with the environment back then, but this was the comedy version of recycling.

Exactly. Exactly. Exactly. It was so funny growing up. I heard Niagara Falls so many times from so many different people. It was on an I Love Lucy episode. Yes.

Yeah. Yeah. It showed up everywhere. So this, when I would watch Abba and Costello's TV show as a kid, Joe Bessa as Stinky scared me. Well, I think that TV show introduced a whole generation to the concept of surrealism. Oh, absolutely. It's so bizarre. I mean, they kind of give you the ground rules. They live in this apartment house.

Their landlord is the ill-tempered Mr. Field. Don't forget his brother Melonhead. Yes. The neighborhood cop is Mike the the Cop played by Gordon Jones. And they go to call on their very elegant neighbor, Hilary Brooke. What is she doing there? What is she doing there?

Exactly. And then they're stinky. Joe Besser was a naturally funny man. He was just funny. And they got the best of him. They really got the best use out of him in that role. But try to explain it to a person in a rational way who's never seen the show or heard of Joe Besser. It's, you know, you just had to be there.

You forgot Bingo the Chimp. Oh yes, lest we forget. They also have Pet Chimp. And Mr. Boccia Gallup. And Mr. Boccia Gallup. And I remember, like I was saying before, giving information to the audience. My all time favorite was on Abbot and Costello where they have to, they come up with some scheme and they have to get a print out a bunch of signs or whatever.

And Abbott says, Hey, remember that printing pressure got on your birthday. Is that the one where they wallpaper the apartment with the savings bonds? That's probably it. Sawing through the wall. It was one of those where you listen and go, okay. Yeah, I buy it, right. It could happen. Now I heard that Bingo and Lou did not get along.

Bingo the Chimp. Yeah, any takers on this? Yeah, Bingo bit both Sid Fields and Luke Costello at some point. In fact, Sid Fields told a story to Jim Mulholland, actually, he said, I got bitten by the Chimp, I'm taken to the hospital, and the guy goes, what happened to you?

He says, I got bit by a Chimp. He says, where'd you get bit by a Chimp? And Sid says, I'm working with Abba and Costello. You're working with Abba and Costello? My kids love them. Can I get an autograph? And he's like, Mike, what about my finger? You know, I got bit by a chimp.

So it's a great story, but so, but, but he made the mistake. Bingo made the mistake of biting Lou and that was it. You know, if you watch, actually, if you watch the episodes with Bingo, Bingo is punches Lou and it's really funny. If you watch, actually, if you watch the episodes of Bingo, Bingo punches Lou. It's really funny and Costello's kind of afraid of him. You really watch closely, you can see the body language. But Hillary got along with Bingo great and Bud seems to, Bud even talks to Bingo

the way he talks to Costello. Cut it out! You know, stop that. It's hilarious. But you're gonna talk about Bud, we talked a little bit about some of the, he talks to Costello, cut it out. You know, it's hilarious. But you're gonna talk about, but we, you know, we talked a little bit about, you know, some of the, you know, rumors about their fights and stuff, but we really should talk about the talent

of each of those guys. And but Abbott was just amazing. I mean, he's just, he's actually as funny as Costello in his own way. I mean, you know, he's steering the ship. Yeah. I always thought if you're a true Abbott and Costello fan, you realize Abbott's the funny one. I mean, what I love, well, like in Who's on First Base, you know, the Costello says, you know, I'm a pretty good catcher myself. And he goes, so they tell me.

Costello says, you know, I'm a pretty good catcher myself. And he goes, so they tell me. That's not a joke, but it's so funny. And when Abbott and Costello meet Frankenstein, Costello's doing his, you know, and he can't, he's trying to mime Frankenstein and Dracula. And and average just goes, OK, OK, put your hands down. But also, I mean, as Leonard said, he kind of steered the ship, but he also had a delivery that was just a joy to watch. Oh, yes. I know they're doing the routine where he comes in and Lou is reading a comic book and

Bud gets into this bit where he's been out looking for a job all day and he finally got a job and he's loafing in a bakery. And they go into this whole routine and at one point Bud gets, he gets very like kind of fatherly and he puts his hand on Lou's shoulder and he says, you know, I never told you but my whole family were loafers. My father was a bigger loafer than I was. What a warm moment, you know? I tell you.

Who said he was the greatest straight man ever? Groucho said that, didn't he? Yeah. About Bud? Quite a compliment. Groucho. Yeah, of course. Of course. And Tom Smothers is, Tom Smothers said that his brother Dickie

models the act, modeled his performance on Bud Abbott and the hostility toward throwing the sympathy on Tommy by being angry and kind of admonishing him. So he's a huge fan of Abbott, of Bud Abbott. Well, he picked the right role model because there's nobody better than nobody better. True. And when they do who's on first, you realize what makes the bit work is it's a completely ridiculous premise.

And Abbott sells it that you think, oh, this makes perfect sense. Who's on first? What's on second? Well, they both believe it. See, they both are very much in that world and the universe of that verbal bit. And no one could stop them or interrupt them and say, wait a minute, what are you talking about? Because they're in it, they're engaged. You could make the argument that because Bud is such a good actor, he turned out to be

a good actor because that's part of selling it. Absolutely. He's invested in the moment. I mean, one of the things about that routine that Lou talked about, somebody asked him if he ever got tired of doing it and he said no, because Abbott's always trying to trip me up and I'm always trying to trip him up. So that's how they kept it fresh. They did it maybe a thousand times.

Their press agent said 15,000, but that's ridiculous. That'd be like twice a day for every day that they were together, which would be... They'd probably wind up killing each other if they did it that often. But, but that was one of the secrets of the routine was to keep it fresh was to, to, but they also, you could also see in certain versions where they get lost in it for a little bit themselves and then they come out of it, you know, so it, it, it, it's a brilliant routine and they, you know, that's a brilliant routine. A lot of Norman Abbott, Bud's nephew, credited Lew with really adopting the routine out of burlesque and making them work on it to become the great routine. Because it had been around in different forms for decades, really.

It was something called... Weber and Fields had done, I worked on Watch Street, and there was another one called Who's the Boss? Who's your boss or who's the boss? I read that Phil Silvers and Rags Ragland did it too. Yeah, well Phil said he did it in the documentary, Bob, the Hey Abbott. Ah, okay, yeah. Remember that? So it had been around for a long time.

Yeah, no, it had been around. But not in the form that Bud and Lou did. Of course, of course. No, I think, I mean, it was like a short story, the way the other guys did it, and they just, they kept piling bits into it and adding outfielders and all that, and doubling back, you know.

Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it. Who's wife? Yes, you know. I throw the ball to who? Naturally, I throw the ball to who naturally I throw the ball to who naturally also I throw it to naturally No, you don't that they when they get they added all this stuff I like when they move into the payment when you pay the first baseman every month who gets the money every dollar But it's just so defiant

It's like why don't you get this? What's so hard about this? I don't like he sells that to the audience where you go, well, absolutely. Yeah, yeah, this all makes sense. I don't know if I should admit to this, but one time in the 70s, you remember the 70s. It was in all the papers. And I wrote a variation on that bit using the names of popular rock groups of the time, like The Who and Yes. And I thought I had it down pretty well. But the fact that it never appeared on the air or in print anywhere tells me,

my opinion may have been the only one. Johnny Carson did one too. Well, you know, I was just gonna say about the routine. If you think about it and you think, well, it's sure fire and anybody could put this across. Well, look at Buddy Hackett and Harvey Corbin doing it. It just lays a huge egg. And it's one of the real brilliant things about Bud and Lou was their timing, their

delivery. And I think with the TV show, that was something, I don't remember who told me this, but that Lou really wanted to produce the show so that he would have what he felt were the definitive versions of all these great classic bits that they did. And if they hadn't done these both in TV and in movies, how many of these routines would be remembered now? I mean, they really captured them for generations. I love the fact that they actually opened the show, the first season anyway, on a stage

in front of a curtain and had a chorus girl come out and hold a card listing the guest stars in that segment, which I never understood as a kid. What's that? Who's she? What's she doing there? And they're on stage in their typical outfits, Lou with the oversized pants and the Derby hat with the narrow brim.

And then they would be, they be cut away from the stage. You'd only see it at the beginning and the end of the show. It was kind of a wraparound. Again, a concept that I never thought about twice as a kid because I just liked them and they were funny. It made the show even more surreal. You talked about surrealism before. And then they go into essentially skits

playing characters named Bud Abbott and Luke Costello. Yeah. But they're broke, deadbeats. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Right. They're not really themselves. Right.

But they're broke, but you know, Bud's got the tie clip with his name on it. You know, he's got the monogrammed handkerchief. I mean, it's so classic how they would cross those lines of doing a sketch or playing themselves. In fact, when I was recently, somebody had asked who played that girl holding the cup of cue cards. Nobody knew.

So I dug through some documents and I found it was a singer named Marguerite Campbell who played the part. But the initial idea for that stage set is they were not only going to have the curtain behind them, they were going to have their logos on the curtain, you know, like they did on the Colgate Comedy Hour show. So then it gets even more confusing. I think that was part of the thing. It's like, there was this kind of hybrid between Colgate's and old time short subjects, you know? So it's, they kind of make that transition, but. Ron, why would the routines change?

Like, Flugal Street and Bagel Street. And in Who Done It, the phone gag is Alexander 2222. And in the TV series, as we all remember. Fuh, fuh, fuh, fu, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa,

fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa, fa Street. And actually they got sued by Joey Fay for using it in society. But even though Sid Fields was writing material for InSociety and he had contributed to Pflugel Street. So there's a whole kind of, you know, Gordian knot of credits there to untangle, you know. But I think that, I'm sorry, go ahead. No, I was going to say, this is the most eerie thing to me. When Costello died, Abbott found another partner by the name of Candy Candido.

Can we talk about him first? Have you ever heard Candy Candido? He was a regular on Jimmy Durante's radio show for many years, and his whole shtick involved that he could do a falsetto voice. I'm going to try it. It sounded like a little girl's voice way up high and then go very, very, very, very low. And his catchphrase was, I'm feeling so low. And Durante just sort of adopted him. And he later did a lot of incidental voices

for Disney cartoons. You can look up his credits if you have nothing else to do with your life. And you know we don't. Yeah. Of Mice and Men, I think he's in there. So he was around, he was a show business guy, and he turns up in small parts in movies, the 30s and 40s. And I once got him on Entertainment Tonight on our weekend show, and had lunch with him before we shot the segment.

And my boss said to me afterwards, what was that about? He failed to understand my reasoning in giving this guy two and a half minutes of air time. But I liked it. That's good. Well, I think, you know, I think Bud wanted to work again. And Ron, you could, you could, I'm sure, talk a little bit more about this.

But I remember one thing, but Abbot Junior told me about that period in his dad's life. He he wanted to do some things. He did a general electric theater with Lee Marvin called. Was it the jokes and jokes on me? And he was not getting his check. And he kept waiting and waiting for this paycheck to show up. And he finally called up and found out that Uncle Sam had taken everything. And at that point his dad just said, well, why bother? Why work? And he stayed retired for a few years until the cartoons in the mid-60s. And that's a whole other world of incredibly

wonderful but avid quotes. If you ever listen to those cartoons and some of the things where he's talking about atomic ray guns and nuclear reactors and all these. Yeah. What the fuck? Put down that atomic bomb. He's on the, don't touch the man's bomb. It's too early, right?

That's right, yeah. Yeah. But he and, Ron, how many shows did Bud do with Candido? Do you recall? He did a few live shows with him, I think maybe six or seven maybe, and they got good reviews. The Variety gave him a very good review. They did a place called the Holiday House in Pittsburgh, which apparently was a big

venue. And eventually, I think Bud just, he did get sick, I think, at one point on the tour. And then I think he just kind of lost his heart for it because he didn't think that it was the same as working with Louie said, you know, his quotas saying nobody could live up to Lou. So I mean, you know, think about but Abbott, I mean, he was in burlesque many years before he teamed with Louie's. he had seen dozens of comics, you know, from backstage, from working in box offices, even from his father's days as,

his father was an advanced man for the mutual, not mutual, for the Columbia Burlesque wheel. So Bud would have grown up around Burlesque and he'd seen dozens and dozens of comics. And then he finally saw Lou, he was like, this is the guy, you know,. Same thing for Lou. Lou had worked with many straight men and he went, he's the best straight man in the business. It was meant to be. And Abbott was an epileptic.

Right. And there were stories that sometimes Sometimes Costello could sense when one of Abbott's epileptic fits was starting. Nick Hagan Yeah, seizure. Yeah. Yeah. And then Lou could punch him in the solar plexus and that would bring him out of it. So apparently it wasn't that often, but it did happen on the set once in a while. One of the reasons that Bud had this guy, Murray Teff, around, he was also to take care of him in case he did get a seizure. Apparently, think about being a performer who has to go out in front of a live audience, and you're worried about having a seizure in front of your live audience. These thousands of people have come to see you.

So Castello's punch worked like a defibrillator, something that would shock his body. I guess, you know, and I guess being a, having been a boxer for a little bit of his life, uh, helped with that for Castello. He had, you know, he tried the amateur boxing for, uh, for a few months or so. A lot of boxing scenes with Lou in the ring. Yeah. And he's awesome.

He's awesome. Invisible man, Buck Privates. Buck Privates, yeah, absolutely. So Ron, do we have the year right? Because we talked about the 85th anniversary. I mean, if they don't start officially working together as a duo till 36, do they work together for the first time in 35, which we said was 85 years ago?

Yeah. At the Eltinge. At the Eltinge Theater, named after Julian Eltinge, who was a famous female impersonator, who threw crowds, and they built the theater for his performance, I believe. It was a headline. He was huge, he was a huge star.

But by that point, during the Depression, half of the theaters on Broadway were dark because nobody was coming to Broadway because there was a Depression. So the theater owners started leasing them out to burlesque companies, and that was one of them, the Eltinge. By 1935, it had been open a few years in Abbott and Costello. We're on the same bill with their different partners. Abbott had Harry Evanson, and Lew had Joe Lyons, a Canadian-born straight man. And Lyons was ill for whatever reason, and Bud did a scene with him. They did the lemon bit, the lemon table routine was their first

Routine together. I like to say that you know who's on first made them famous, but the lemon table brought them together and They went their separate ways because they had been booked on other circuits And then he came back about early in January of 36 They teamed up and they got they went to work for the Minsky's and they had worked for the Minsky's separately Before that, but then they went out with on the Minsky's and they had worked for the Minsky's separately before that, but then they went out on the Minsky's circuit after that. I remember seeing Lou do the Lemon Bit and Crazy House and a couple of other of those burlesque standbys on the Steve Allen primetime show. This is in the 50s, So I was very, very young. But the memory is so vivid to me because it was Luke Costello. And there he was on live TV.

It was even to a young kid. That was that was really exciting. And I remember one of the shows that he was on was one that Steve did from Havana. Obviously, before Fidel came to power, they did a remote episode of the Sunday night primetime show from Havana, Cuba with Lou. Was Hyman Roth in that episode also? And just off stage, just off stage. There was this story that I've heard a few times, saying that the last snail in the coffin

of their teamwork was Lou Costello's maid. Well, that was earlier. That was in the 40s. Yeah, that was like, that was a big rift in 1945 where Costello fired a maid and Abbott hired her because she was dating his, his butler or chauffeur. And Costello went, you got to fire the maid, you know, and he says, I'm a fire in the maid. It's a free country. I can hire whoever I want. And that they were just about to go out on a, on a tour and they had a big fight and they didn't speak to each other except on stage during that. And then later on, Costello said, you know, that was really a ridiculous reason to have

a fight. But they almost, the act was, you know, all of the gossip columnists carried it that they were not weren't speaking and they're breaking up and Universal's going to move movies with Costello or Universal's not going to do movies with Costello, and all this stuff. So, you know, back then, you know, they had this hot copy. They were still very big, very popular stars. Sure.

I just watched on YouTube the This Is Your Life episode that Ralph Edwards did on Loo. Oh my God, I watched that recently. And Bud refers to their breakup of 1945 and says, you know, it was just stubbornness and, you know, there was no good reason for it to happen. And it's so, so frighteningly bad taste where he delivers that in a like a real game show host fashion and goes, and we'll be hitting upon the time that the saddest thing that could happen in any man's life, the death of his child.

And then later in the show when they start talking about it, I think they play Pagliacci. So you'll know that it's sad. Early television. Here's a listener question from a friend of ours, Bob Greenberg, who does a pretty good Lou Costello. Gilbert, you'll love this. I've always been unclear about Bud's Jewish roots.

I ran into Bud Jr. at a convention years ago, and he was wearing a star of David. Any takers on this one, Leonard? I know nothing about this. Well, Bud- But I'm willing to learn. Bud Abbott's mother was Jewish. Uh-huh. So, and then Bud married,

when Bud got remarried, I think, to his wife, the same wife, they had another ceremony in the 1950s where they do, they did a Jewish ceremony, but Bud had been married by a minister originally. But I don't know if, I don't think he practiced. I mean, Bob, did you, did Bud Jr. ever say anything about it? No, I don't recall. No, I don't remember.

I mean, Bud went to, Bud was a Lutheran. I mean, the family was raised Lutheran, I believe, so. I was trying to give you one there, Gil. I know. I did hear about that he was Jewish. You've got all the Stooges, come on. Yeah, that's right. And the Marxes.

And the Marxes, yeah. And the Marx brothers, for God's sake. Exactly. Here's another one from Jonathan Winchell. Do you guys all agree that Abbot and Costello Meet Frankenstein is by far the team's best film? And if not, what is your opinion of the best film? Leonard? Well, I think it's not only their best film, but it's a terrific movie. Yes. By any standard, by any measure. And Time

has been very kind to that movie. It looks better than ever. And Charles Spartan did a great job as a director. And I heard he was a comic himself. I don't think he was a comic. He had acted in some movies and then he worked his way up from like a prop man to assistant director and then he became a director. But he directed so many comedies, I mean, movies and TV, episodic television.

And Joe Besser, I think, said that, you know, he was one of the best comedy directors around at the time. They were comfortable with him. Yeah. We haven't talked about their home movies or their outtakes, their notorious outtakes. Please do. I hope Bobby Barber shows up in some of those outtakes.

You bet he does. I have to mention Bobby Barber because I promise, you know, it's just a gift to Drew Friedman. Well, I was enjoying Bob Fermanick is responsible for putting out Africa Screams and just a gorgeous, gorgeous Blu-ray copy. And it has among the extra features on it are outtakes. And to call them outtakes is really stretching the definition because it was, it was these, these were like in-joke gags.

Like you do stuff for a Christmas reel and that's, that was the, the equivalent in Abin Costello's case. So they're, I mean, they're fun. Well, I've seen the, I've seen like Glenn Strange cracking up when Lou sitting on his lap in Frankenstein. I've seen some of them. Bob, did you make any, did you make any other discoveries? Any? I've seen strange cracking up when Lou's sitting on his lap in Frankenstein, I've seen some of them. Bob, did you make any other discoveries?

Well, yeah, the outtakes are fascinating because I believe Lou may have been one of the first, if not the first, to ask studio editors to assemble a gag reel, or they call them blow-ups. He started doing it in 1942, I think, pardon my so wrong, was the first blow-up reel. And he did it for almost every film up until Africa Screams. Leonard, are you aware of any other actors or stars,

you know, requesting gag reels of their movies at that time? Not really. I mean, you know, those Warner Brothers blow up reels from the late 30s. But that was done by the studio for a Christmas party. And I don't know of any of any other stars or celebrities who who did things like that. By the way, you just in passing, you mentioned this title. I think about that we're in the year 2020.

Would you expect to open a newspaper or go online and see a movie title of today called Pardon My Sarong? (*laughing*) Gilbert's in the X-rated version of that. (*laughing*) That's a film that only could have existed then. We will return to Gilbert Gottfried's amazing colossal podcast, but first a word from our sponsor. Ooh, are these wine glasses crystal?

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to book an appointment with one of our advisors. And someone told me that Luke Costello was in an episode of Wagon Train. Yeah, that's on one of the, MeTV runs that series, Boy's Wagon Train, and you can actually catch it if you know when it's going to be on, but it's been on and he's pretty good. He's really good in it. It's a dramatic role. He plays a drunkard and it's a little bit, it's interesting to see him in that role because

there's no, he doesn't play for laughs at all. Bob, tell us about some of the challenges of restoring Africa Screams and Jack and the Beanstalk. Two that you took on recently. Yeah, I mean, they were both independent productions and Jack and the Beanstalk, which is the current project that we're working on is an enormous challenge because the original elements are gone.

The 35 millimeter color negative, the red, blue, and yellow color separation masters that were made to protect the film are gone. And I've gone back to records back to the late 50s when the rights were sold to a company in New York called Sterling Television. They didn't even get the elements then. So these materials have been missing for decades. And it is challenging because in the case of Jack and the Beanstalk, we have to do our restoration from release prints that actually played theaters. And for a film like Jack and the Beanstalk

that was so enormously popular and played for so many years, it's a real uphill battle to get very pristine copies. But thankfully, I've been pretty successful in locating good material, and there's enormous opportunities to clean things up digitally now and things that you couldn't do years ago when all the work was done photochemically or optically on film. So we're going to have a version that's going to be pretty outstanding.

And I think fans are going to really enjoy it. But if I can just go back to one point that you were making about your favorite film or their best film. Yeah. And one thing that I've tried to do over the years, anytime I've had an opportunity to show their films to an audience, I've tried to go a little bit out of the safe area. You know, everybody can do Buck Privates or Meet Frankenstein, but I've gone with some of the more obscure ones.

And what's been really surprising in every single case when shown with an audience, even the things you think are really poor, like Abed and Costello go to Mars or meet Captain Kidd, they come to life on the big screen. I'll bet. And the audiences respond and there's a laughter and it just gives the

film a whole new appreciation that you don't get when you're watching it on television. By yourself. Yeah. You're doing the Lord's work, Bob. Well, thank you. So bravo. Thank you very much. It's important work. There was a man who was like the third string film critic at the New York Times for many years named Howard Thompson. He was a very good writer and very witty. And for many years he did their TV listings.

And one of my all time favorites doesn't express my sentiment, but I have to admire the joke because the listing said, Abin Kastel will go to Mars. And his comment was and about time. Didn't he also write lost in Alaska lost in Alaska lost is right. Yeah. It brings to mind the classic Leonard Balton movie guide review for Isn't it romantic Leonard which is my favorite thing of all time.

This got me in the Guinness Book of World Records. And it was a reader who submitted it because the review is no. So shortest review of all time. I mean, it's not a highly informative review, I grant you, but I couldn't resist. You know, speaking of Butt as a good actor, and he was given a chance to act, you guys talk about it in your book, Bob and Ron and Abbott and Costello in Hollywood, that a movie like Time of Their Lives gives him something different to do.

And you guys make the argument that it proves that he could have been a character actor. He gets to be the hero in that one too, which is a rare thing. Yeah, I think he- Saves the day. He's not used to working without Lou, anybody's working with these other characters in context. And he only has a scene with Lou

at the very beginning of the movie, but he really does carry the film. And you're right, he's the butt of Lou's anger as a spirit, and he's also the guy who redeems himself at the end. So he does carry a lot of the movie. In fact, so much so that at one point Costello wanted to switch parts. And he stayed away from the set for a few days until

you know they actually asked and they said no we're not going to switch parts you're playing the ghost and that was it and that turned out to be great because you know it's a very touching film also you know with in that in his character you know being bound to the earth and things. And let's talk about some of the other after the success of Meet Frankenstein. There was Meet Jekyll and Hyde. The killer. Yeah, Meet the Invisible Man. Boris Karloff. Meet the Mummy. By then, Abbott was putting on weight. Lew had just been sick again. Lew had just been sick again and he'd lost a lot of weight so

that's why the scales were balanced differently there. Meet the Mummy is the last Universal picture run? Yes. Yeah. Yeah I kind of like it in spite of the fact that it is in prime. I think it's good. I think it's a bounce back from Lost in Alaska that's for sure. Me too. I agree. I mean, I like the middle ones. I may be in the minority. I mean, I like in society. I like... Oh sure, there's a lot to like there.

Yeah, I like Naughty 90s. I know they're not considered top five. Who Done It is one of my favorites. The first one without music. Yeah. Really? I like Who Done It very much. And Who Done It has the little homage to Who's On First. Exactly. Two of them.

There's the Watt and Volt bit. Watt and Volt. And then there's the bit where the routine is playing on the radio. Because they're famous enough at that point to parody themselves. Yeah, that's a great moment in that movie. It's really funny when they turn on the radio

and hear themselves. It's good. I like Pardon Myelf Wrong a lot. And I also like the, I like these service comedies as well. But Privates is a great one. Hold That Ghost is probably- I love Hold That Ghost. It's right equal with Frankenstein.

I mean, I really, Joan Davis is, can't be, you can't beat Joan Davis in that movie. She's really funny in that and perfectly suited to work with Costello in the moving candle. But, you know, where are you watching? Go ahead, Leonard. Okay. And I've been waiting. I thought this was going to finally be the night and I would have the opportunity for

somebody to say to me that dance with me, Henry is their favorite. I bet when you show that to an audience it does not. Resurrected on the screen. Listen, I like Hit the Ice. Oh, that's a great one. I want to stand up for that one too. That's a great one too. Who done it's terrific.

Our friend Frank Coniff does an audio commentary on that one. With Meet Frankenstein, also what was important with that movie was they had the brains to finally bring Bela Lugosi back. Yes, I mean, but that's just it. You have the authentic, the authenticity of the universal horror, you know, atmosphere as well as the actual actors. That's Lon Chaney Jr. He was Larry Talbot, the wolf man. Felo Lugosi, he was Dracula. And Glenn Strange, you know, was new to that role, or fairly new to that role, but he's great. And he doesn't, he hasn't called on to do the kind of acting that Karloff, you know, was required to do and did so well

in the 1930s. But it's great to be able to do a parody so authentically. The comedy exists as comedy and the horror ingredients exist intact by themselves and stand on their own legs. Yeah, you really have to credit Robert Lees and Fred Rinaldo, the screenwriters who really put that together. I mean, they were given the basic idea, you know, make it, have it a Castillo,

make it Frankis, and then go, go right. And then they, you know, basically, it took a while to coalesce into the idea of, you know, using Costello's brain, which is another great linchpin idea for a movie. Not only meeting Abba and Costello, not only meeting Frankenstein, but Costello is literally going to become Frankenstein. It has so many levels of underscore there.

Karloff's fear was that they were going to too fun of the monsters, make them look ridiculous. And I think Cheney was quoted years later as saying that they turned the monsters into buffoons. And I think the opposite is true. I think that's what makes the movie work, is the monsters are respected. Absolutely. Maybe in lesser hands, that would not have been the case.

Quick question from our friend Wally Matthews about that movie. Was Lou accidentally punched in the face by Glenn Strange because he was standing on the wrong mark? Not sure that's, you can count that as accidentally because they said he deliberately stood on the wrong mark. Interesting. You know, what's funny is like about that movie

and people have talked about this, but like Lou Costello hated the script, right? He didn't want to do it originally, and had to be talked into doing some major scenes, like the scene of the candles moving on the coffin. He didn't want to do that. He didn't want to sit in the monster's lap, and he had to be convinced. And then of course, it wound up being, those are so iconic moments of that movie, you know? But like, so many artists don't recognize what, they're great work at the time.

I heard Springsteen didn't want to release Born to Run and Woody Allen is not fond of Manhattan, and Costello didn't like this movie. But sometimes an artist doesn't recognize his best work. Yeah, I was lucky enough to interview Bob Lees, the co-writer of this and several other films. And what a nice man, and he was proud of this and several other films. And what a nice man. And he was proud of this movie.

It was not something, you know, that he he did, you know, the punch a time clock and forgot about. He knew it was good. Yeah, I like to also Frank's Frank Skinner score is so good in that movie. Oh, yeah. It really is. It really contributes quite a lot. And one thing, I mean, this guy was, you know, really like the king of the Munchier films,

and he worked a lot with the Abbot and Costello Munchier films was the stuntman Eddie Parker. Does anyone know about him, any backstory on him? Well, I know a few years ago, a lot of research was done on a group, the Classic Horror Film Board, about the Frankenstein meets the Wolfman and all the extra footage that was done for that film,

because initially, Legosi's character had dialogue and was blind, and they removed all of those references. So they had several different actors come in to do stand-in work and stunt work. But I don't think Eddie Parker worked on me. Frankenstein, Ron, do you remember if he was? You know, Glenn Strange broke his ankle in one scene and Lon Chaney put on the monster makeup to finish the shot. It's in the laboratory after he throws the doctor

out of the window. And then actually another stunt guy did some of the stuff on the pier. I forgot his name now. So actually three guys played Frankenstein and Abank's telling me Frankenstein. Not the scene where the monster's on fire, but another scene, one of the night shots. You told me they considered Chaney playing two parts at one point. Yeah, one of the early memos was something about, you know, getting

Lon Chaney to play the monster and the wolf man, which I don't know how you were going to reconcile that. But then again, if you had another stunt man playing the monsters from behind or whatever, you could probably get away with it. But I mean, think about Lon Chaney, he could, you know, how much, how many hours he'd have to be in that makeup chair to do both of those parts. Well sure, but Jack Kearse was gone by that point

and they were using the Westmore masks. Yeah, but still. And she, when they did Frankenstein meets the Wolfman, their original idea was to have Cheney in both parts. Yeah, right. But I think, you know, one interesting thing about Boris Karloff and Abed and Kassel meet Frankenstein, he turned down the offer to do the film

because, you know, he felt spoofing the monster was not appropriate or whatever. But the year earlier, he did The Secret Life of Walter Mitty with Danny Kay. And again, very recently, within just the last couple of years, photographs have surfaced of Jack Pierce doing the monster makeup on Karloff for that film. Apparently it was part of the nightmare scene or something where K sees him. And so apparently Karloff wasn't opposed to, you know, spoofing or using the monster for laughs.

So I'm not sure what really happened with not doing Meek Frankenstein. Maybe they didn't meet his number. That's very likely. I think it's a little different from being a little cameo in one movie to being have been in this movie so much as the monster is. And in that makeup for so long, I mean, might have been. Yeah, that's true. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, that would have been very burdensome for him at that point.

And just a year later, of course, he co-starred in Abin Kastelow, Meet the Killer, comma, for a problem. And so he was not opposed to working with them. Right. That's where Eddie Parker comes in. Gilbert, Eddie Parker doubled for Karloff in Meet the Killer when he turned, not Meet the Killer, I'm sorry, in Jekyll and Hyde. Jekyll and Hyde, yeah. In Jekyll and Hyde, so.

A question for Leonard from Ed Marcus. Hey Leonard, Schaemp shows up in a few films. To your knowledge, did they work together in Burlesque previously, was there a preexisting relationship? I don't think Schaemp worked in Burlesque at all. No, no, I think Sch Schemp was a universal contract player, I believe Leonard, right, at that point. I mean, he'd been with W.C. Fields in the bank tick.

So he was on the lot. So I think they put him in Buck Privates originally, and then he kept reappearing. I think that, you know, Bud really liked Schemp. He thought he was really very, very funny. I think- And they hired, on the independence film, Africa Screams. They hired him. Right, yeah.

Come in for a couple days and he's very funny. Shemp's always funny. I mean, maybe sacrilege, but he's my favorite stooge, so. Not sacrilege here, sir. Again, Drew, I hope you're listening. Darren Boats has a question for you, Bob, that I'm sure you're tired of being asked. Can you please ask Bob about the day the clown cried?

Ah-ha. What does he know? Ooh. Yeah, well, I can tell you that a lot of what's been said and written about the film is not accurate. When I worked for Jerry, he didn't really have much on it. The only thing I came across in his film archive were a couple of short rolls of negative, little thousand foot rolls, about seven, eight minutes.

He had several full reels of 16 millimeter Kodachrome footage taken on the set, but he didn't have much in the way of master elements for the film. And, you know, I never really discussed it much with him. It was kind of a sensitive subject and I didn't feel comfortable bringing it up. But I don't believe there ever was a finished version of the film. I know certainly that there was no cut negative or assembled negative. There may have been a work print and some assembled sections. And Jerry always had very high hopes for picking up the ball and finishing that project up until that whole spy magazine Harry Shearer story hit and all the negative press and that just let the air out

of the balloon. He decided after that point he had to walk away from it and then in later interviews was saying he was embarrassed of the work and it should never be seen. I'm not sure how much of that he believed. I think he really had a passion for the film. He put a lot of his own money into it. But there's no complete finished version to be seen. There's just little sections, a little assembled work print sections. So there you have it folks, the official answer on the day the clown cried. Here's a wild card question

that I think Ron can take a whack at because I find weird shit when I'm researching. Was Bud Abbott kidnapped as a teen and taken to Norway? I think that's a publicity story, but he actually did sign up. No, but he did sign on to a steamer to be a cabin boy on a steamer. And then they basically threw him in the hole and made him shovel coal. So he got really kind of Shanghai, but not really because he had volunteered to go on it.

This is according to his sister. Because that was a popular story that they kidnapped him and just threw him on this boat. Kilbert, how do you define popular? That the four of us. Since we mentioned Sid Field's contributions as a writer to the series, I'd like to mention John Grant as well. Somebody want to talk about him? John Grant was the, well Ron can probably address in greater detail, but John Grant was the, well, Ron can probably address in greater detail, but John Grant

was the burlesque veteran that they hired, put on staff, and he credited on almost every one of those movies they made because he remembered all of the burlesque routines, verbatim, and found sometimes in genius ways, and sometimes not so ingenious ways, they just sort of did it, of integrating those routines into their movies and TV shows. Yeah, the process was they would write a screenplay

that was basically a straight story, and then they'd hand it to John Grant, and then he would say, okay, you know what? This will work. This routine will work here. We'll put the lemon table here. We'll put the dice game here or whatever it would be. And then it would just have to find a one sentence introduction to get it into the movie.

And if he did... Boxcars. Big Bennies. Big Bennies. Well, he's really, he's kind of an unsung hero too because the films films he didn't work on, you could tell something's lacking. Yeah. He was also, not only was he inserting these things into the script, but he was on the

set while they were shooting. And he would come up with, you know, Abba and Costello came up with Ad Libs too, but he also would come up with, hey, why don't you try something like this or something like that? So he was constantly coming up with bits and improving the scenes and everything. Now, Costello apparently did a lot of blocking, a lot of scene blocking.

He was very good at that, but also John Grant helped contribute to that. Then I guess what maybe you wanna get into is the whole McCarthy thing. When he became very, very, very patriotic and he became somebody who supported MacArthur and the communist witch hunts. And there was, Liza Ronaldo were blacklisted,

so Costello saw that people around him who were working on his movies were accused of being communists or had been in the Communist Party. Anyway, so Costello wanted anybody who worked for him to sign a loyalty oath that you aren't a member of the communist party. And John Grant refused to sign it. He says, you know, you know me long enough. I'm not signing anything.

So Costello basically fired him and he was gone for lost in Alaska. And he was, and it shows, you're right. And it shows, and there's a couple others that he was going for, but then they brought him back into the fold and he kept writing stuff. I think he worked on just about every Colgate comedy hour also. He didn't work on the radio after the Kate Smith show,

and he didn't work on the television series because he had Sid Fields and Clyde Bruckman and some other people, but he worked on some of the live shows and the movies. Well, I'm going to ask you guys, as we wind down, I'm going to ask you guys favorite films and favorite bits, favorite moments. But first I'm going to ask Bob, Bob, why do you have a gold record? Oh, well, in the early 90s, I was doing some producing for Capitol Records and my brother and I were

working on a Dean Martin release, the Capitol Collector series. And the idea of this release is it was going to take for the first time and put all of his charted songs on one compilation. Well, there was only one problem and that is that Dean had 19 charted records and we were supposed to put 20 tracks onto this thing. So we looked at his entire recorded output for Capitol and out of these hundreds of songs, there was one song that I thought really needs to be on this set because it was a great track and it was really forgotten about.

And the song is Ain't That A Kick In The Head. It was recorded in 1960. It was for the FilmOcean's 11. But Capitol had issued a single and it bombed. It didn't get any airplay at all. And except for one budget reissue on, I think, Pickwick Records in the late 60s, the song was totally forgotten and very, very obscure. So we ended the CD with that track and a year later Scorsese used it in Goodfellas.

And now that song is iconic. I mean, it's considered one of Dean's classic tracks and I wish we got royalties on all the times it's been used. But it was very cool. It was very cool to kind of resurrect that and give it new life. How did it work again, Bob? Did they release EO 11 as a single? Sammy's version?

EO 11. Yeah, no. How did you like Dean, Bob? How did you like working with him? How did you like spending time with him? Dean was wonderful. I first met him in 1981 on a show called Portrait of a Legend. James Daren hosted it.

And Dean was spotlighted. And I got to go to the house and spend an afternoon. I was scared to death. I was 20 years old. And I'm in Dean Martin's living room, you know, which doesn't happen every day. And they had set it up with the crew that at the end of the shoot, I was gonna have a little private time on camera with Dean

to give him this cassette of this 1944 radio show he did. And I remember walking over to the couch and I just froze. I stood there looking at him and he looked at me and just very casually says, come here, sit down, Pally. And he just put me at ease. And what a wonderful sweet guy. And years later, when I was doing the work at Capitol, I got to produce about three or four reissues of his work.

And I saw him a number of times then, and it was a little sad because it was after his son had died. And Dean really kind of gave up, and he was not in good shape, but an amazing guy, very down to earth, made you feel very, very comfortable. And I couldn't believe my good fortune. I was very, very lucky.

This may sound ridiculous as revered as he was and as popular as he was, but I still say he's underrated. Yeah. Certainly as a comic. Yeah. I think he's had a chance in the last decade or two to kind of, you know, with this King of Cool brand that they've tagged him with and, you know, he's gotten a bit of a renaissance, the roasts being sold for years. So I think, you know, I think he's had more success in the last decade or two than he did

really for the last few decades of his own career. And getting back to something that we were talking about before. They like to say, Jerry Lewis has said, like, that he didn't talk to Dean Martin until after his son died. But yes, you say they would get together. Well, what happened when Dean's son died, Jerry went to the service, but he stayed in the background. He didn't make his presence known. When Dean found out about that, he was really touched and called him. They spoke for a good hour on the phone. What that did was it kind of brought them back together as friends again. And they maintained that friendship until Dean passed.

They spoke every few weeks. Even when Jerry was touring around the country with Dan Yankees, he always would check in. And Dean would call him preacher because Jerry was always writing him to take care of yourself and eat well and go to the doctor when you've got problems. But at that point, I think Dean had just sort of given up and it was a sad end to an incredible life. Yeah. Quickly, going around to each person here

as we run short of time, and of course we could do this for six hours. Leonard, I'm gonna start with you. And I know it's hard. One favorite film, one underrated film of A and C, and a favorite bit or routine that doesn't have to be from either film. Oh, gosh. I should have been prepared for this kind of a question. That's okay. You're gonna have to wing it.

Clearly I am not. Clearly I am not. I think Buck Privates Come Home is underrated. Let's start with that. That was one of the first ones I saw as a kid, and I hadn't yet seen Buck Privates. But I like Buck Privates Come Home quite a lot, and still do. So that's the underrated one. Favorite, well, I guess it's Avon Costell and Leigh Frankenstein.

May seem obvious a choice, but there it is. And Bitt, who's on first? I mean, that's the one. Iconic. Beyond. We haven't mentioned that wonderful find that came out on Blu-ray during the past year of the Colgate show where Lou was sick, Bud had to go on solo for the first time and how long had it been since he'd worked solo without his partner, Lou Costello, and Dean and Jerry agreed to come on

and fill the rest of the show. And the whole show is fantastic. I saw that on your website. Yeah. That's so funny. I've always heard that story and I wondered if it were true. So was Jerry Lewis and and Lou Costello? Well, no, yeah. Bud was hosting the show because Lou was ill and Martin and Louis came on as an extra added attraction for about the last 15 minutes.

Bud has a little on screen time with both Dean and Jerry. But the one thing that was written, and I think this goes back again to that wonderful Bob Thomas book, and he talked about a benefit where they changed partners and Jerry and Bud did Who's on First together. I asked Jerry about that. He said never happened. Oh, there you go, Gil. I had always heard that story.

I wanted it to be true. Bob, Bob quickly. Favorite underrated picture and favorite routine slash bit. All right, favorite, I'm gonna go with who done it. It's, I find that is constantly a joy to watch. It's good. And it holds up, there's not a dull moment in it. And you can't go wrong with William Bendix and,

oh, who's the lady that That's Ron, help me. Mary Wicks. Mary Wicks, thank you. And Don Porter. Yeah, thank you. Good cast. I was gonna say whodunit. Favorite routine, I'm gonna pick one out of left field here

and that's the loafing routine from the TV show. Oh. It's absolutely brilliant. And that's the only time they did that bit. So that's a favorite. Most underrated, I think, in society is a really good film. I love in society. I think it's the first one I saw, and you always have affection for the first one you

saw, the Disgruntling film. Yeah. I mean, absolutely. It's got great routines. You know, the whole Susquehanna Hat Company bit, the whole bit with Thurston Howell, about Thurston Howell, right? Thurston Howell, about Thurston Howell, right. Thurston Howell Hall. And you know, the plumbing bit, of course I had the Castle Films version

called Knights of the Bath. So you know, it's good to see it in its complete form. But yeah, I think in society is another gem. Good choices. Ron, same question. Well, you know, we've already mentioned Frankenstein, but I'd say Hold That Ghost ghost, it's probably my favorite. That's my favorite. And underrated would be

Abbot and Costello go to Mars, believe it or not. Wow. And I'm good company because Martin Scorsese also agrees about that. It's a guilty pleasure of his. So a favorite routine, I mean, I have like so many, I love the pack and unpack bit. But that's really like a forte for Bud and Lou has to keep it funny by pantomime, which is really great.

They did that in the series too. Yeah. And I love mustard. Mustard's great also. So, Gilbert, same question. Pretty also pretty obvious ones. Abbot and Costello meet Frankenstein's my favorite. And well, and of course, who's on first is the greatest bit.

But I also enjoy a go ahead, eat a sandwich. Oh, I love that one. Order something. Order something small. Is that the same bit the twin waitresses are in? Yes. Yeah, this is this man's place of business. I'm gonna ask another question.

Who knows if it'll even wind up in the show, but I gotta know that Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra, I heard beat up the chairman of Hunt's Foods. This is a tribute show. I kind of know if anyone has any insight there down that. Chairman of Hunt's Foods. Ron? No idea.

Okay, Bob's got a puzzled look on his face. That's news to me. I know that they locked the owner of Star Kiss Tuna in a trunk of a car, but I'd never heard anything about the hunts. Gilbert, that's a less popular story. I'm gonna go with hold that ghost, hit the ice for underrated or in society. I don't even know if it's considered underrated.

I like coming around the mountain too. I might be in a minority there. Wow. You're on your own on that one. That's one I don't hear very often. Are you a big Dorothy Shay fan? I like moments in it. And favorite routine, I'm going with the twin waitresses.

Great. Yeah. You know one real strong asset to come around the mountain I think that's the only time you hear Bud's actual singing voice. There you go. There you go. The only time. You know you have fondness for them because of the way you discovered them as a child. Right. Yeah. You know? And last question for you guys before Gilbert brings up another scandal. And this may be too obvious a question, but I'll start with Ron.

Why are they timeless? Why do they endure? Bud and Lou? They're just funny. I mean, they're funny guys, naturally funny men, and they're doing material that was old when they started doing it, and they knew how to do it. They knew how to wring laughs out of it.

And you also are laughing at their chemistry, I think. They just, you know, that's the whole thing about a comedy team is the chemistry. Look at Laurel and Hardy, look at the Stooges. And an affection that you sense between them too? I, oh yeah, I think so. I think there is, yeah. Even though Bud's character is not very sympathetic, without him, Lou is not a sympathetic character.

But then I think beyond that, you feel that Bud is looking out for Lou, because they do pull each other out of scrapes. Leonard, same question. Why are they still so popular? Same answer, funny. Funny is funny. And those routines are, they were time tested, you know?

They held up for audience after audience, in person, on the radio, on television, in the movies, and they were foolproof, as foolproof as anything in comedy can be. Great answer. Bob? Well, I would have to say, the two that I think they're films that you can enjoy on different levels.

You can enjoy them as a child. As you get a little bit older, you could appreciate the timing and the wordplay a bit. And it's also something you can share with your kids. So you grew up with them, you show them to your children, they grow up with them, and it goes on and on. And that's one of the great things about the accessibility now.

We're talking about back in the 1960s and 70s when you had to wait for these, you know, TV showings once a week. Well, now with the DVDs and Blu-ray and all, you can watch them anytime you want. And, you know, that will help the legacy to continue as well. Good. Good answer. When my daughter was young, she loved the mutter and fodder routine. Oh, yes.

The mutter eats the fodder. That's still good. Let's get to the plugs. Ron, the fan club site and the fan club itself, which you started way back in 1986. 1986 to mark the 50th anniversary of their teaming. It's abbottandcastellofanclub.com and we have a lot of stuff up there and information. We also point to

Bob's work on the restorations. There's a lot of news still happening in the Abbott and Castello world, and we have other things going on there. The two books I did for Magic Image slash Bare Manor, the one's about Buck Privates. It has the shooting script, so you can actually see where they improvise things and production history, and one for Hold That Ghost, which for fans to know that movie was, basically half of it was re-shot later on when they added the Andrew Sisters.

So it has both screenplays in there as the original screenplay, and it has the addendum script as well. Leonard, tell us about the new Leonard Malton game. It was not my idea or my creation, but I'm very flattered that the folks at Alamo Drafthouse, Alamo Drafthouse movie chain, and Mondo, Mondo Games, put together a board game

based on my book, based on the reviews in my classic movie guide. And it's not a trivia game. It's a game where you have to try to imitate the style of my reviews by picking you play with like three or four players, ideally. Great to do online now during the pandemic, because you can do it with Zoom. And you pick a card, the card has the title of a movie and the review.

And no one has heard of half these movies. No one has heard of three quarters of these movies. So you pick one and everyone has to be honest and say, no, I don't know what that movie is. And then you write a phony review. And the one who writes the review that sounds most like it's real wins. And where can people get the game?

It's online, wherever games are sold. Good, good answer. Terrific. And also- Or you can go to Mondo Games. Mondogames.com. And of course your wonderful podcast continues with your daughter, Jesse. I love the Matthew Modine episode. You guys, we had fun. It was in a

monkey movie with Gilbert and one of my favorite reviews. It was called Funky Monkey and Matthew Modine was in it. And one critic's review was one line that said, Matthew Modine once starred in a Stanley Kubrick film. Bob, the restorations, what's happening with Jack and the Beanstalk? Well, I think by time this airs, the campaign will be over, but we've just had a very successful Kickstarter campaign to restore it. It will be released next summer for the 70th anniversary of the film's production, and that's going to be available from our good friends at ClassicFlix.com and then Flix is FLIX.com.

They have also available now is our restoration of Africa Screams, also done for Kickstarter campaign and restored from the original 35 millimeter nitrate elements. Looks amazing. There's hours of extra material on the disc, including a commentary track from Ron Palumbo. It's everywhere. It's so ubiquitous. That's right. So, Africa Screams is available through Classic Flicks as well.

We also restore vintage 3D films, and we've done a couple dozen of them. Our most recent release is called 3D Rarities Volume 2. And that's available from flickrally.com. And I'm very proud on that release to have restored Cesar Romero's only 3D movie. Uh oh, Gilbert. Only one? What? Orange? What did you do? It's a 1953 production in Mexico called El Corazon Vaila Espada starring...

Oh, I have the Newbaster reel. It's got, there you go. Katy Harado is in it and I can tell you Gilbert, no orange wedges were harmed during the making of that film. He's on to you, Gilbert. I thought when you put the glasses on, the orange would just go out of the way. What is the name of this picture again, Bob? El Corazon, Guayla Espada. I love this.

I love how Cesar Romero is the last thing mentioned in this episode. Bob, I love what you do. You're a major contributor to the culture. Oh, well, thank you, Frank. And thank you, Gilbert. It's such a joy being on the show had a great time. Thank you guys thank I want to thank Leonard too

for introducing me to these two wonderful gentlemen and I want to thank Jesse for her tech help and for and for making this possible and my fellow Abbott and Costello fanatics this was a joy. Oh our pleasure thank you so much for having us you guys are great so keep keep it up. Thank you so much for having us. You guys are great. So keep it up. Thank you. 80 years since Night of the Tropics, huh? And I guess we don't have time to talk about the fact that Abbot and Costello were serial killers. They both went to the electric chair.

Is that Watts or Volts? I'll give a story. He knows a callback when he sees one letter. I know, right? All right, Gil, you want to take us out? Okay, this has been Gilbert Gottfried's Amazing Colossal Podcast with my co-host Frank Santopadre, and we've been talking to Bob Fermanac and Ron Palumbo and of course Leonard Maltin about the great Abbott and Costello among other things. And for those of you who remember the haunted house episode of Abbott and Costello,

Ron has on his wall the Bobby Barber, the spooky Bobby Barber. Bob has it. That's hanging. What? Lose the... Abbott picks it up and says, oh, you've gotta go. You gotta go. I had it swinging on a branch, as I recall, in the wind. Terrific. Thank you, gentlemen. This was really a treat.

Thank you. For us too, thanks. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thank you. A lot of fun. What are you doing? I love baseball. Well, we all love baseball. When we get to St. Thank you. A lot of fun. Go pick up your hat. Go pick up your hat. Now look, then you'll go and peddle your popcorn and don't interrupt the act anymore? Yes, sir.

But you know, strange in this scene they give ballplayers nowadays very peculiar names. Funny names? Nicknames, pet names. Not as funny as my name, Sebastian Dinwiddie. Oh yes, yes, yes. Funny or din-bat? Oh, absolutely. Yes, now, on the St. Louis team, we have who's on first, what's on second, I don't know's on third.

That's what I want to find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows on the St. Louis team. I'm telling you, who's on first, what's on second, I don't know's on third. That's what I want to find out. I want you to tell me the names of the fellows on the St. Louis team. I'm telling you, who's on first, what's on second, I don't know is on third. You know the fellows' names? Yes. Well, then who's playing first? Yes.

I mean the fellows' name on first base. Who? The fellow playing first base for St. Louis. Who? The guy on first base. Who is on first? Well, what are you asking me for? I'm not asking you, I'm telling you, who is on first?

I'm asking you who's on first. That's the man's name. That's whose name? Yes. Well, go ahead and tell me. Who? The guy on first. Who? The first base. who's on first. That's the man's name. That's whose name? Yes. Well, go ahead and tell me. Who? The guy on first.

Who? The first baseman. Who is on first? Have you got a first baseman on first? Certainly. Then who's playing first? Absolutely. When you pay off the first baseman every month, who gets the money?

Every dollar of it. And why not? The man's entitled to it. Who is? Yes. So who gets it? Why, shouldn't he? Sometimes his wife comes down and collects it whose wife yes

After all the man earns it who does absolutely Well, I'm trying to find out is what's the guy's name on first base? Oh, no, what is on second base? I'm not asking you who's on second who's on first. That's what I'm trying to find out. Don't change the players I'm not changing nobody. Take it easy. What's the guy's name on first base? What's the guy's name on second base? I'm not asking you who's on second. Who's on first? I don't know. He's on third.

We're not talking about him. How did I get on third base? You mentioned his name. If I mentioned a third base was named, who did I say is playing third? No, who's playing first? Stay off of first, will ya? What do you want me to do?

Now what's the guy's name on third base? What's on second? I'm not asking you who's on second. Who's on first? I don't know. He's on third. There I go, back on third again? What's on second? I'm not asking you who's on second! Who's on first? I don't know! He's on third!

There I go, back on third again. Well I can't change their names! Will you please stay on third base, Mr. Broadhurst? Now what is it you want to know? What is the fella's name on third base? What is the fella's name on second base? I'm not asking you who's on second! Who's on first?

I don't know! Third base! Woo!